Search results matching tags 'Career', 'Opinion', and 'Goals'http://sqlblog.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?o=DateDescending&tag=Career,Opinion,Goals&orTags=0Search results matching tags 'Career', 'Opinion', and 'Goals'en-USCommunityServer 2.1 SP2 (Build: 61129.1)What Does a Good Mentor Do for You?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2014/01/13/what-does-a-good-mentor-do-for-you.aspxMon, 13 Jan 2014 18:21:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:52551KKline<p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;"><a href="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1417634_10151781045013107_1245313907_o.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5831" alt="KevinEKline.com Mentors" width="300" height="200" style="border:0px;cursor:default;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1417634_10151781045013107_1245313907_o-300x200.jpg"></a></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;text-align:center;"><em>These would be good mentors - me plus Adam Machanic, and Klaus Aschenbrenner</em></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">Not long ago,&nbsp;John Sansom (<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/sqlbrit">Twitter</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.johnsansom.com/">Blog</a>) kicked off a&nbsp;SQL Community Project #DBAJumpStart by&nbsp;asking 20 successful and experienced SQL Server professionals this exact question:</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;text-align:center;"><em>"If you could give a DBA just one piece of advice, what would it be?"</em></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">I wrote up my&nbsp;<a title="Kevin E. Kline's Advice for the Aspiring DBA" href="http://kevinekline.com/2013/12/10/one-piece-of-advice-for-the-aspiring-junior-dba/">Advice for the Aspiring DBA post here</a>, while John collected the entire set of responses here within the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://www.johnsansom.com/dba-jumpstart/">DBA JumpStart</a>&nbsp;collection. Part of my advice, indeed of several of the contributors, was to find and build a strong mentor-protege relationship. &nbsp;But what does that really mean? What does a mentor do for you?</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">&nbsp;</p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:20.98958396911621px;"><span style="font-size:14px;line-height:1.5em;">Meaningful Mentors</span></h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">First of all, a successful mentor acts on behalf of their protege, with an eye to the their profession development and, if they work for the same company, for the betterment of their mutual employer. Here are several things successful mentors do:</span></p><ol style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;"><li><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Model the behavior a protege should emulate</strong></span>: In the IT world, there are few areas where the protege has bigger blind spots than in handling interpersonal situations. Yes, we're great at handling technology, but not so good with politics and persuasion. So when you encounter a mentor who effectively models confidence, competence, professionalism and integrity, you can be certain that his is a person to emulate. &nbsp;(And as a potential protege, keep in mind that you don't want a mentor who acts in a way that you don't want to emulate).</li><li><span style="line-height:1.5em;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Move the mentor-protege relationship forward</strong></span>: &nbsp;I personally believe that the onus is upon the protege to initiate and carry most of the water in the relationship. But a successful mentor will stay cognizant of the status of the relationship and help to keep it moving in a positive way. We want a mentor who notices when we've disappeared or gone quiet for a couple months.</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5em;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Introspection</strong></span>: It's rare for a mentor to be approached by a person without ambition. The flip side is that ambitious people are often somewhat less introspective and attuned to their own flaws. Just like with coaches in sports, mentors in your profession help the protege understand their strengths and weaknesses and how to amplify or mitigate them, respectively.</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5em;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Sponsorship</strong></span>: Good mentors know that learning skills takes practice. Consequently, a good mentor is on the lookout for ways to apply the skills and abilities of their proteges. In my own case, I frequently try to connect my proteges with speaking and volunteering opportunities that increase their prestige, introducing them to important contacts, and helping to broker new relationships.&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Wisdom</strong></span>: Sometimes a protege needs help with personal matters that aren't work or career related. In many situations, a good mentor will help their protege work through emotion issues and explore, in a respectful way, an open dialog that can help the protege gain perspective on their situation. This might be a scenario like working through a confrontational work situation which is actually motivated by a emotional reason that is simmering just beneath the surface.</li><li><span style="line-height:1.5em;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Teach</strong></span>: Depending on the work environment, good mentors can teach key technical skills needed to be successful in a particular job. In a sense, they teach competency. &nbsp;But in technology, so many of our successes are driving by non-technical factors. I've found over time that my mentors taught me important lessons in setting priorities, recognized the true motivations of people I interact with, and focusing on results-oriented activity.</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5em;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Inspire</strong></span>: Whenever I begin a new mentor-protege relationship, I begin with values and passions. What does my protege really care about? What get's them excited about the day ahead? Many times proteges don't even realize why they're earning their daily bread, aside from the paycheck. And many other times, proteges have no idea what they can achieve. As a mentor, we want to awaken creativity and inspire the protege to act upon those creative impulses. "I want to become a recognized authority and speak at events all over the world!" is something I hear frequently from proteges. Yes. It's definitely in your grasp. But how does the protege react after their first disastrous presentation. Many, who don't have a mentor to bolster their spirits and make the ordeal an uplifting learning experience, throw in the towel and vow to never make that mistake again. &nbsp;Good mentors can help them to see through the hard times to the&nbsp;<em>even better</em>&nbsp;times ahead.</span></li></ol><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">If you've made it this far, you're probably digesting all of the recommendations. And perhaps you're thinking about times in the past where you had a mentor who you respected and who provided you with a lot of help. &nbsp;I'm sure that they didn't do every single thing on the list. &nbsp;But they probably did several if not most of the activities on the list.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">Whether you're currently a mentor, or a protege, or hope to be one or the other in the future, keep in mind the behaviors that enable a mentor to succeed. As a protege, look for these behaviors in your mentor.&nbsp;<i>Ask for them</i>, if need be. &nbsp;As a mentor, take an inventory of whether you do enough of these to truly be a valuable and trusted confident of your protege.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">By giving of ourselves, as mentors or proteges, we build much stronger relationships based on amity and intimacy. In our go-go, hyper-fast internet-driven world, that's one thing I never get enough of.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">What's your opinion? What was your best mentor like?</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;">-Kevin</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:20.98958396911621px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p>My Advice About Growing as an IT and Data Professionalhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2013/07/15/my-advice-about-growing-as-an-it-and-data-professional.aspxMon, 15 Jul 2013 19:09:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50119KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a href="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IMG_6089.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-5717" alt="IMG_6089" width="300" height="223" style="border:0px;cursor:default;float:right;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IMG_6089-300x223.jpg"></a>First off, I should apologize for not blogging in quite a while. I've been traveling extensively and, because traveling can be so exhausting, I usually have to queue up blog posts to hit while I'm traveling in order to remain active while on the road. &nbsp;I didn't do that for these most recent trips. &nbsp;And, as you can see, there's quite a gap between this post and my last few posts.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">On the other hand, I've experienced an unexpected surge in requests for mentoring and advice from friends and colleagues about career growth. &nbsp;I'm always happy to help out a friend and, in fact, there's little in my professional experience which I enjoy more than seeing friends grow and advance. &nbsp;Because I get a lot of questions about professional development, I try to distill these thoughts down into usable nuggets of wisdom.&nbsp;<span style="line-height:19px;">Since I've had quite a few interview requests in the vein of career and professional development in the last several weeks,&nbsp;I thought what better way to get back on track with blogging than to put them all together in one place!</span></p><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Infusive Solutions: Mindful Career Development</h1><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Ben Weiss, the digital marketing strategist at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.infusivesolutions.com/">Infusive Solutions</a>&nbsp;in NYC (<a href="http://facebook.com/InfusiveInc">facebook</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.infusivesolutions.com/resource-center/">blog</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/InfusiveInc">twitter</a>), &nbsp;reached out to me a few weeks ago to discuss career development for his own team members around personal branding and career growth. &nbsp;This guy is really good at making hay while the sun is shining! &nbsp;We'd initially done just a simple phone discussion, but he has managed to expand these discussions in a variety of ways. &nbsp;Here are all the links, at present, to the content that Ben created from our discussions:</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">1. How to Become an IT Executive:&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://www.infusivesolutions.com/blog/bid/99470/How-to-Become-an-IT-Executive-Especially-if-You-re-a-DBA">http://www.infusivesolutions.com/blog/bid/99470/How-to-Become-an-IT-Executive-Especially-if-You-re-a-DBA</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">2. Landing page with the full interview:&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://www.infusivesolutions.com/a-sql-server-mvp-with-knowledge-to-share">http://www.infusivesolutions.com/a-sql-server-mvp-with-knowledge-to-share</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">3. The recent NYC SQL User Group meeting &nbsp;on personal branding:&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://clicktoattend.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/EventDetails.aspx?EventId=170863">https://clicktoattend.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/EventDetails.aspx?EventId=170863</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">One of the key points in the interviews is that the IT professionals who learn the most about what their business does, rather than just the IT that they work with, are frequently the most successful. &nbsp;It's a mindful process of understanding your strengths and weaknesses, improving those areas where you are genuinely weak, amplifying those areas where you excel, develop your communication skills, and then getting outside of your comfort zone to become a genuine business problem solver. &nbsp;I've said it 100 times -&nbsp;<strong>There are&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><em>NO</em></span>&nbsp;information technology problems. There are business problems which are&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><em>solved</em></span>&nbsp;with information technology. &nbsp;</strong>The IT pros who learn that lesson are mighty indeed. &nbsp;Grab the interviews for more insight.</p><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Louis Davidson: Why We Write</h1><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Louis "DrSQL" Davidson (<a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/louis_davidson">blog</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/drsql">twitter</a>) is a long-time good friend. We live in the same fantastic town of Nashville, TN and both are active supporting the local SQL Server user group. &nbsp;In one of those ironic twists of 21st-century life, we might see each other more in a given year in&nbsp;<em>other&nbsp;</em>cities than in our own home town, simply because we both speak and travel a lot. &nbsp;If you're considering growing your professional credentials by writing, and it certainly is one of the best ways to grow your personal brand, then I recommend you read all of the "Why We Write" posts in Louis' blog series. &nbsp;In my interview, I tried to give Louis really thoughtful and insightful answers. &nbsp;The core of my advice to potential writers in the answer to question number 5. &nbsp;Please read it and tell me what you think. &nbsp;The full blog post and interview:</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Why We Write, #6 by Louis Davidson with Kevin Kline:&nbsp;<a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/louis_davidson/archive/2013/06/05/why-we-write-6-an-interview-with-kevin-kline.aspx">http://sqlblog.com/blogs/louis_davidson/archive/2013/06/05/why-we-write-6-an-interview-with-kevin-kline.aspx</a></p><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Richard Douglas: Speaking and Presentation Skills</h1><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">My friend and former coworker at Quest Software, Richard Douglas, has also put together a very nice interview series which is predominantly IT experts from the UK. &nbsp;Richard has some very insightful questions and a rather different strategy. &nbsp;His questions are much more focused on developing skills as a good speaker. &nbsp;It's been very gratifying to see Richard grow in stature as a database expert over in the UK and I'm looking forward to even more great community work from him. &nbsp;An example of the interesting sort of questions he came up with for the interview include how to make a presentation not only useful, but how can the speaker project it with authority and charisma? &nbsp;That's not the sort of question I get every day.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Read my answer to this question and many more here:&nbsp;<a href="http://sql.richarddouglas.co.uk/archive/2013/01/new-years-aspirations-kevin-kline-presenting.html#ixzz2MtjkVRb6">http://sql.richarddouglas.co.uk/archive/2013/01/new-years-aspirations-kevin-kline-presenting.html#ixzz2MtjkVRb6</a>.</p><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Tim Ford: Interpersonal and Communication Skills</h1><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Tim Ford (<a href="http://www.ford-it.com/sqlagentman">blog</a>&nbsp;|<a href="http://twitter.com/sqlagentman">twitter</a>) is a long-time SQL Server pro, who's also a very energetic volunteer and user group leader. &nbsp;One of his very cool side projects is the&nbsp;<a href="http://sqlcruise.com/2014-sql-cruises/">SQL Cruise</a>. &nbsp;Tim has been running the SQL Cruise for many years now and it's one of my favorite ways to conduct training. &nbsp;We have a full day of training every day that we're at sea. &nbsp;We do excursions together. &nbsp;We do "office hours" every evening with lots of time to discuss individual problems, career development, and focus on individual mentoring. &nbsp;A while back, Tim conducted an audio interview and, for some reason, I'm only now getting around to post it.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Please give it a listen and let me know what you think:&nbsp;<a href="http://db.tt/UHJK5ojc">http://db.tt/UHJK5ojc</a>. (This is a Dropbox file. I'm not really sure how it'll behave if you do not have Dropbox installed. Let me know if it doesn't work as expected).</p><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Rodney Landrum and SQLBeats: Looking Over the Horizon</h1><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Rodney Landrum (<a href="https://twitter.com/SQLBeat">Twitter</a>&nbsp;|<a href="http://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/author/2133-rodney-landrum/">Blog</a>)&nbsp;has been putting out great content for Simple-Talk for quite a long time now. &nbsp;In fall of 2012, we got together and recorded a podcast which was really fun and, at times, funny.&nbsp;Here is the full podcast. Rodney told me that he laughed at several points while editing. &nbsp;That makes me happy!</p><div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372259898115_59292" style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a id="yui_3_7_2_1_1372259898115_59291" title="http://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2012/10/02/sqlbeat-podcast-episode-5-kevin-kline-talks-with-me-about-sql-professional-development-and-book-writin/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2012/10/02/sqlbeat-podcast-episode-5-kevin-kline-talks-with-me-about-sql-professional-development-and-book-writin/">http://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2012/10/02/sqlbeat-podcast-episode-5-kevin-kline-talks-with-me-about-sql-professional-development-and-book-writin/</a></div><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">Most of all, I'd like to hear your feedback. &nbsp;Let me know what you think by posting a comment here, mentioning this on Twitter, or social media like Facebook or LinkedIn. &nbsp;Many thanks,</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><span style="line-height:19px;">-Kevin</span></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:18.99305534362793px;">&nbsp;</p>The Next Chapter: Inspiring and Motivatinghttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2012/07/16/the-next-chapter-inspiring-and-motivating.aspxMon, 16 Jul 2012 14:41:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:44311KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">I’d like to start this post first by thanking everyone who sent well wishes, both public and private, about my decision to move on from&nbsp;<a title="Quest Software, my alma mater " href="http://www.quest.com/">Quest Software</a>.&nbsp; It was very uplifting and encouraging to hear from you!</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">So, again, the question of “Where am I off to?”&nbsp; The answer is&nbsp;<a title="SQL Sentry" href="http://www.sqlsentry.com/">SQL Sentry</a>.&nbsp; I’m joining them as Director of Engineering Services, with a focus on technical sales and marketing, as well as a heavy dose of R&amp;D design work. &nbsp;(<a title="Kevin Kline to Join SQL Sentry" href="http://www.ereleases.com/pr/sql-sentry-announces-kevin-kline-director-engineering-services-82845">Read the press release here</a>).</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">In case you haven’t encountered SQL Sentry before, they’re a small Southern company concentrating on the SQL Server market.&nbsp; In anticipation of questions about why I might chose to work at SQL Sentry, I can sum it up in a word: potential.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">SQL Sentry is loved by their customers.&nbsp; Their products are strong.&nbsp; Their R&amp;D team is exceptionally talented, achieving master-level knowledge of SQL Server itself. Their internal processes are agile and direct.&nbsp; Their strategies, priorities, and ethics are a direct match with my own.&nbsp; That special, magical alchemy of great technology, inspired customers, and enthusiastic culture is exceedingly rare.&nbsp; And the potential for new achievements is, in my mind, unmatched elsewhere in the industry.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">&nbsp;</p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">Let’s (specifically, let US, not just me) move the ball forward…</h2><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">The most effective technology evangelists not only paint a picture of how new technologies can improve the lives of their audience, they literally inspire their audiences to&nbsp;<em>act</em>&nbsp;on that vision.&nbsp; (Sidebar: Would you like to see more blog posts and proscriptive guidance on how to be a technology evangelist, either internally-facing or external? &nbsp;I’ve not really seen much content on that topic.)</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">SQL Sentry has empowered me to spread a simple message - that there are no IT projects; instead there are business projects which use IT to accomplish their goals.&nbsp; That means you’ll still be seeing me in all the familiar venues – conferences, blogs, magazine columns, and such.&nbsp; That means I’ll also be serving as&nbsp;<em>your&nbsp;</em>technology evangelist back into SQL Sentry around our internal R&amp;D efforts!</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">I’ll be working hard to spread the word, not only about SQL Sentry, but also about SQL Server and the awesome community we have built around SQL Server.&nbsp; Make no mistake – the SQL Server community didn’t happen by accident.&nbsp; It was built up over years through conscious choice and repeated action of people like you. &nbsp;And today, I want to encourage you to renew your mind and spirit.&nbsp; Don’t just shuffle through the day.&nbsp; Continue to add to our community.&nbsp; Continue to make it better.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">Wondering where to start?&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>Here’s the easiest thing in the world to do to start making our community better</em>. &nbsp;I ask you to commit to responding with a comment to those posts that you’ve enjoyed.&nbsp; Just try it for one week.&nbsp; Even if all you have to say was “I enjoyed that” or “You gave me food for thought” or “Here’s how I felt about what you said”.&nbsp; If you don’t feel like you’ve added value after your week long trial, then stop.&nbsp; But I think you’ll find it such a positive experience that you keep going.&nbsp; We’re social creatures.&nbsp; Sharing makes us feel better and&nbsp;<em>be better</em>.&nbsp; &nbsp;To reiterate, communication is not a one-way street.&nbsp; Only by providing your input can we elevate that most pedestrian form of communication,&nbsp;<em>messaging,&nbsp;</em>into the infinitely better form of communication called&nbsp;<em>dialog</em>.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">Let’s start that dialog today!</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">Again, thanks so much for your support and encouragement.&nbsp; Best regards,</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">-Kevin</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">-<a title="Kevin Kline's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/kekline">Follow me on Twitter!</a></p>A Fond Farewell to Quest Softwarehttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2012/07/11/a-fond-farewell-to-quest-software.aspxWed, 11 Jul 2012 23:01:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:44267KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;"></p><p></p><p>The week of the 4<sup>th</sup>&nbsp;of July is a happy week for Americans.&nbsp; Most families get out for a parade, a fireworks display, a picnic in the park, a movie where Will Smith puts the beat down on a bunch of aliens, or an afternoon at the pool or lake.&nbsp; We celebrate the contributions of our service men and women. We honor veterans. We drink a lot of beer.&nbsp; We reflect on the founding of our nation and the meaning of “Independence Day”.</p><p>My own reflections over the Independence Day holiday took me in a new and rather unexpected direction.&nbsp; After ten-and-a-half immensely rewarding years at&nbsp;<a title="Database Management Tools of Quest Software" href="http://www.quest.com/database-management/">Quest Software</a>, I have decided to seek new opportunities.&nbsp;</p><p>Today, I wanted to publicly reflect on my time at Quest Software, saving my next blog post for some thoughts about my new endeavors. &nbsp;I could probably write a short novel about all of the great experiences and learning opportunities I had over the last ten years. &nbsp;Part of the reason it might make a good novel is because my memory is notoriously weak and my creativity is equally strong. &nbsp;I might just make up details to fill in the fuzzy recollections. &nbsp;Just sayin'... &nbsp;But just to give you a taste, here’s a brief timeline of my ten years at Quest, highlighting some of my favorite experiences:</p><ul><li>I joined Quest on January 2<sup>nd</sup>&nbsp;of 2002 as Senior Product Architect to design the tools that would become Quest’s first foray into the SQL Server database market. &nbsp;Quest dominated the Oracle tools market but was at square one for tools in the SQL Server space.&nbsp; I’m grateful to Eyal Aronoff, CTO in those days, and Guy Harrison (<a title="Guy Harrison's Blog" href="http://guyharrison.squarespace.com/">blog</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a title="Guy Harrison's Twitter Feed" href="https://twitter.com/guyharrison">twitter</a>), current leader of the Melbourne office, for mentoring me through the near-comically hard process of designing and building software products&nbsp;<em>that can sell</em>. Dax French, then product manager, taught me about the concept of salability.&nbsp; Oh, it’s easy to put requirements down on paper.&nbsp; But that’s about as close to a finished and sellable product as a laptop is to an abacus.&nbsp; I also learned a whole heck of a lot about software development from&nbsp;<a title="Patrick O'Keeffe of Quest Software" href="http://www.quest.com/newsroom/patrick-okeeffe.aspx">Patrick O'Keeffe</a>, and about corporate politics in a worldwide development organization, especially from Julie Ackerman, then VP of Operations.&nbsp;</li><li>In late 2003, I became the Director of Technology for the SQL Server Solutions Group. (Yeah! We had a team name and a few products!)&nbsp; Hiring your own team is a dream for many leaders in IT.&nbsp; And I have to say with more than a little pride that the organization we built included the most intelligent, energized, and fun people I’ve ever known.&nbsp; Being empowered to hire a team, set goals, and deliver on them was a fantastic, though demanding experience.&nbsp; .&nbsp; I’m thankful to the team for their incredibly hard work and unsinkable ethics: John Theron, Johnny Ortez, Lee Grisson, Joe Motley, Hassan Fahimi, Israel Kalush, and so many others.&nbsp; I’m grateful that my more experienced peers on the other major dev teams, Rony Lerner and Steve Rosenberg, enthusiastically taught me how to answer the needs of both a sales-driven corporation and a deadline-driven engineering process.</li><li>Throughout this time, I experienced the full support of&nbsp;<a title="The Executive Leadership of Quest Software" href="http://www.quest.com/company/management-team.aspx">Quest’s executive leadership</a>&nbsp;as a Microsoft MVP and, even more so, as a founder and eventual president of&nbsp;<a title="The Professional Association for SQL Server" href="http://www.sqlpass.org/">PASS</a>.&nbsp; I can’t emphasize enough what a big deal this was.&nbsp; The leadership of PASS was an incredibly difficult workload to support, basically equivalent to a second full-time job, and also a difficult period in my life personally.&nbsp; I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fully thank the top leadership of Quest for allowing me, around 2006, to move some of those PASS hours into my day job at Quest.&nbsp; I literally could NOT have served two terms as president of PASS without this level of support.&nbsp; Yeah! Now I was back down to an acceptable number of hours per week, including the time spent on PASS, blogging, etc with my day job.</li><li>In 2005, I again ventured into new territory and new experiences. &nbsp;I never in my wildest dreams anticipated that I’d someday learn about and actually work on M&amp;A deals.&nbsp; I knew Quest did some M&amp;A from our acquisition of Leccotech, bringing in the outstandingly talented&nbsp;<a title="Claudia Fernandez of Quest Software" href="http://www.quest.com/newsroom/claudia-fernandez.aspx">Claudia Fernandez</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a title="Darren Mallette of Quest Software" href="http://www.quest.com/newsroom/darren-mallette.aspx">Darren Mallette</a>, among many others, and FastLane, where I learned a lot from David Waugh.&nbsp; But that’s exactly what happened when&nbsp;<a title="Qsft - Imceda Acquisition Press Release" href="http://www.quest.com/news-release/quest-software-to-acquire-imceda-software-inc-042005-81496.aspx">Quest finally acted on my advice to acquired Imceda</a>, where I got to meet and work with the likes of Douglas Chrystall (<a title="Douglas Chrystall's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/dchrystall">twitter</a>), Jason Hall (<a title="Jason Hall's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/jasonfhall">twitter</a>), and&nbsp;<a title="David Gugick of Quest Software" href="http://www.quest.com/newsroom/david-gugick.aspx">David Gugick</a>&nbsp;(<a title="David Gugick's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/davidgugick">twitter</a>). During this time, I learned an amazing amount about executive leadership from some of the very best in the IT industry – Vinny Smith, Doug Garn, Charles Ramsey, Steve Dickson and John Newsome.&nbsp; I think they’d probably laugh to hear me say this, but I have confess that I was at the level of “barely able to hold my fudge” intimidation whenever I breathed the same air as these guys. &nbsp;But I also watched them closely, tried to absorb their wisdom, and emulate their behaviors that engendered the success of the company.</li><li>2006 marked another new adventure for me at Quest because, for the first time, I began to work more heavily on technology evangelism than on product development.&nbsp; We now had several products which needed more attention and focus on campaign-driven marketing efforts.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a title="Billy Bosworth, CEO of Datastax" href="http://www.datastax.com/about-us/management">Billy Bosworth</a>&nbsp;joined as our new VP and General Manager.&nbsp; Christian Hasker (<a title="Christian Hasker's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/chasker">twitter</a>) joined as our new Director for Product Marketing, while Heather Eichmann and Andy Grant joined the effort. &nbsp;This team rocked! &nbsp;We became a team of thought leaders that influenced the way the rest of the company did business. &nbsp;I learned an enormous amount from these folks about advertising, marketing, technology evangelism, and community building.&nbsp; I could easily write a book with anecdotes and lessons on how to be an effective technology evangelist.&nbsp; Charles Ramsey, president of Quest during those days, bestowed the title of “Technical Strategy Manager” upon me due to all of the time I was spending on a wide cross-section of activities for sales, marketing, R&amp;D, as well as interfacing with Microsoft’s SQL Server team, to name a few, Paul Randal (<a title="Paul Randal's Blog" href="http://sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/">blog</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a title="Paul Randal's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/PaulRandal/">twitter</a>), Kevin Farlee, Gert Drapers (<a title="Gert Draper's Blog" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gertd/">blog</a>), Joe Yong, Bob Ward (<a title="Bob Ward's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/bobwardms">twitter</a>), the late Ken Henderson, Jimmy May (<a title="Jimmy May's Blog" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jimmymay/">blog</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a title="Jimmy May's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/aspiringgeek">twitter</a>), Mark Souza (<a title="Mark Souza's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/mark_sqlcat">twitter</a>) and the Jedi of&nbsp;<a title="Microsoft's SQL Server Customer Advisory Team" href="http://www.sqlcat.com/">SQLCAT</a>, and many others.</li><li>I still remember fondly how a friend had forwarded a “tweet” from a certain Brent Ozar (<a title="Brent Ozar's Blog" href="http://brentozar.com/">blog</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a title="Brent Ozar's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/brento">twitter</a>) about him being excited to sit in my session at the PASS Summit in late 2007.&nbsp; My first thought was “What the heck is a tweet?!?” &nbsp;My second thought was "I should meet this guy!" &nbsp;Before long, though, I was working with Brent in his new role as our full-time technology evangelist whence I moved to Pre-Sales to work more directly with large customers and key accounts - and where I have been ever since (until now).&nbsp; During that time I learned how to give a really good product demo from Jason Hall, David Swanson, and Ari Weil&nbsp; (If you don’t already know how to give a good product demo, check out&nbsp;<a href="http://www.secondderivative.com/">http://www.secondderivative.com/</a>&nbsp;and buy their book post-haste).&nbsp; It was also very education to learn from great Pre-Sales leaders like John Milburn and Robb Dunewood.&nbsp; I also learned a whole lot about the awesomeness of&nbsp;<a title="Camtasia, the BEST Video Editing and Webcasting Software for PCs" href="http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html">Camtasia</a>&nbsp;– which you should buy&nbsp;<em>right now</em>&nbsp;if you ever do recorded presentations. Brent stayed with us for a couple years, teaching me an enormous amount about social media and, although I’d been blogging since 2004, a whole lot about how to be a better blogger.&nbsp; Someday, I hope to actually&nbsp;<em>apply&nbsp;</em>what I learned from Brent.</li></ul><p>From that early team, we built a culture of trust with our customers, attempting at every turn to add value to what we built.&nbsp; And it shows.&nbsp; Our products have won a multitude of awards and plaudits.&nbsp; I’ve seen a host of product launches and major new releases. I cannot take nor deserve the credit for these great tools. I was merely a very small part of the team that brought them to life.</p><p>I’m so very proud of the full-stack monitoring and alerting in Spotlight, of the unmatched analytics in Foglight Performance Analysis, of the raw value of LiteSpeed.&nbsp; I’m also very proud of the evolution of Toad, from a small and practical aggregation of utilities, into a full suite for developers, data modelers, and data analysts.&nbsp; Add in the unique scalability testing features of Benchmark Factory and I can say without any apology that we built the definitive and comprehensive platform of tools for the database professional.</p><p>Working deep in technology has always been interesting and exciting. But my favorite part of the job has always been interacting with customers and partners.&nbsp; It’s an uplifting experience to share the ways in which the Quest tools empower customers to do things they’ve never been able to do before and to make their jobs and their lives better.&nbsp; Meeting our clients on four continents over the course of thousands of presentations and meetings has been a top highlight of my career.&nbsp; Whenever I interact with customers, I want the focus to be on mutual learning.&nbsp; Customers teach me as much as I’ve ever taught them.&nbsp;</p><p>As time advanced, though, I gained insight into why some periods at Quest were more enjoyable than others.&nbsp; The laser-sighted focus of our early, smaller organization was a definitely highlight.&nbsp; The rhythm of business travel also picked up dramatically in recent years, with a commensurate decline in my overall health and wellbeing. &nbsp;Clearly, I needed a change.&nbsp;</p><p>You might be asking “If it was so good, why are you changing things?”&nbsp; Well, I’m not leaving because of a negative of some kind.&nbsp; I can assure you that it is not because I’ve had some kind of personality conflict, disagreement over strategy, or that I’m otherwise unhappy with Quest.&nbsp; Quite the opposite, I’m leaving because I’ve been offered an new opportunity that is both very exciting and enormously reinvigorating.&nbsp;</p><p>To all of you that I’ve already mentioned mentioned by name, and to the multitude more whose name I wasn't able to record above, I owe a debt of gratitude. &nbsp;I wish you not goodbye, but the fondest of farewell.&nbsp;</p><p>Farewell is also in order because to you, my readers because, well, you’ll still be seeing me in all the old familiar places. So where am I off to? Tune in next Monday for that bit of news.</p><p>Until then. &nbsp;Enjoy!</p><p>-Kev&nbsp;</p><p>-<a title="Kevin Kline's Twitter Feed" href="http://twitter.com/kekline">Follow me on Twitter</a></p><p></p><p></p>SQL People Interviewhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2011/04/28/sql-people-interview.aspxThu, 28 Apr 2011 13:35:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:35229KKline<p>Many thanks to Microsoft SQL Server MVP Andy Leonard (<a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/andy_leonard/default.aspx">blog</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/AndyLeonard">twitter</a>) for conducting a series of interviews of prominent SQL Server types, including me.&nbsp; The interview found <a href="http://sqlpeople.net/post.aspx?postHeaderId=22">here</a>.</p>
<div><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';">~~~</span></div>
<div>
<p><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';">Enjoy!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';">-Kev</span></p>
<div><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';"> <a href="http://twitter.com/kekline" title="C'mon. You know you want to!" target="_blank">Twitter at kekline</a></span></div>
</div>
<div><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';"> More content at&nbsp;<a href="http://kevinekline.com/">http://KevinEKline.com</a> </span></div>Leadership, Management, and SQLRallyhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2011/04/25/leadership-management-and-sqlrally.aspxMon, 25 Apr 2011 14:55:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:35167KKline<h2><em>Transparency - A Great Leadership Quality</em></h2>
I've always appreciated how Andy Warren (<a href="http://www.sqlandy.com/">blog</a>| <a href="http://twitter.com/sqlandy">twitter</a>) operates in the most transparent manner, especially as it relates to his role as a director for the <a href="http://www.sqlpass.org" title="If you're a SQL Server professional, you have no excuse not joining." target="_blank">Professional Association for SQL Server</a>. For example, Andy's <a href="http://www.sqlandy.com/index.php/2011/04/sqlrally-2011-update/" title="SQLRally Update" target="_blank">latest blog post</a> about prepping for the <a href="http://www.sqlrally.com" title="The East Coast SQLPASS Community Event" target="_blank">SQLRally</a>, to kick off in less than 30 days, is insightful and gives you a good idea of the sort of work a strong director for PASS needs to put in. I also enjoy how Andy more or less thinks out loud and offers you the chance to provide your input. In that latest blog post, he was mulling different after hours entertainment options, giving you a chance to pipe up with your opinion if you had one.
<h2><em>Learn from My Mistakes</em></h2>
Times running out for the early registration discount. Save $50 by <a href="http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/orlando/Register.aspx" title="Register for SQLRally" target="_blank">registering before the end of the week</a>! And while you're at it, register for my full day, pre-conference seminar on learning leadership and management skills especially tailored for the IT professional. Here's a quick run-down of the topics we'll cover in my pre-con:
<ul>
<li>Earning the respect of your team</li>
<li>A deep understand of effectively motivating technology professionals</li>
<li>Specific skills to lead database professionals competently that broadly fall into the categories of:
<ul>
<li>Coaching team members to effectively meet goals and deadlines</li>
<li>Facilitating change and navigating organizational disruptions</li>
<li>Promoting communication within the team and with management</li>
<li>Keeping teams and projects on task and within scope</li>
<li>Dealing with difficult team members</li>
<li>Practicing good team time management techniques</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Read all about the goals of the session <a href="http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/orlando/Agenda/PreConferenceSeminars.aspx#PD" title="Hope to see you there!" target="_blank">here</a>. If you're coming to my session, I'd love to hear your thoughts ahead of time about challenges you're facing!
<h2><em>Personal Experience</em>, <em>Personnel Experience</em></h2>
Also, just a word about my bona fides. I've had a lot of leadership and management training over the years, but like many professionals I consider my on-the-job experiences to be the most valuable.
On the education side of the equation, I received a bachelor's degree in the school of management back in the 1980's. I've also gone through the <a href="http://www.ccl.org" title="Excellent training from the Center for Creative Leadership" target="_blank">Center for Creative Leadership</a>'s leadership training curriculum, the<a href="http://www.blessingwhite.com/home.asp" title="Excellent management training from Blessing &amp; White" target="_blank"> Blessing and White Management Training</a> curriculum, and SmithBucklin's not-for-profit governance and organizational strategy training curriculum. On the experience side of the equation, I led small dev and admin teams of 3-7 people starting way back in the early 1990's. In the late 1990's, I started taking a more strategic direction with my skills as the manager of information architecture at the firm where I worked as well as taking a role as one of the founding directors of PASS. In the early 2000's, I joined <a href="http://www.quest.com/sqlserver" title="Makers of famous database tools like TOAD and LiteSpeed" target="_blank">Quest Software</a> as our initial SQL Server product architect and spent several years leading the team to a over 50 individuals in a half dozen teams in as many disparate locations around the world.
<h2><em>A Few Words About Community from SQLBits8</em></h2>
The more I go, the more reasons I find to go back to the <a href="http://www.sqlbits.com" title="Not really small bits, more like huge chunks fo SQL learning" target="_blank">SQLBits</a> conferences held around the UK. The starting image isn't very flattering, but here's a fun little interview put together by Andrew Fryer of Microsoft:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4EjZ-FutLQ
Enjoy!
-Kev
<a href="http://twitter.com/kekline" title="C'mon. You know you want to!" target="_blank">Twitter at kekline</a>
More content at <a href="http://sqlblog.com/controlpanel//">http://KevinEKline.com</a>